Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  He barely had enough warning to duck. Claws like short swords slashed by a hair’s width above his head. The dragon hissed in frustration, then drew its head back. Madoc glimpsed a huge coal-black eye, shining with predatory rage, and saw the chest beneath the crimson scales swell.

  Fire.

  Darting sideways, grabbing his sword from its sheath and knowing it would do little good against the monster, Madoc knew quickly and too late that he’d been wrong—not about the fire, but about the target. Antonio’s long neck pivoted with a speed no man used to natural creatures could have expected. Opening his immense jaws, he spat a stream of white-hot flame toward Elian.

  The air singed around the fire. Madoc could smell it, just as he could hear Bronwyn’s shriek of anguish. He spun, sword in hand, sure that he couldn’t help and that he would see his host’s death shortly before his own, but not knowing any better path to take. Elian wouldn’t believe himself abandoned; perhaps that would matter.

  Crossing over the edge of the lake, the fire sent up a cloud of steam, though it was higher than the water. Madoc couldn’t make it out clearly, but for a moment it looked like the flame had to push its way through an invisible barrier. It gathered and slowed, and in that was Elian’s salvation.

  The lord couldn’t dodge the flame entirely, but he’d already been in motion at the moment Antonio had attacked him. The delay carried him to the edge of the fire, which only licked at his trailing leg. Had he not been by the pool, that would have been small mercy indeed, for his clothing caught instantly, but he flung himself into the water, screaming but alive.

  “Follow him!” Madoc yelled. He couldn’t see Bronwyn, nor did he have time to turn and look. He could only trust that she’d take his advice, and hope he could buy her enough time to manage it.

  He threw his dagger, aiming for the dragon’s eye, and almost hit it. Antonio swung his head back around toward Madoc, though, and the blade bounced off the scales of his jaw, not even scratching them as far as Madoc could see.

  A quick leap sideways saved Madoc from another pass of the claws. He stabbed in their wake. This time, steel did carve through scales to flesh, and Antonio’s blood spilled to smoke on the grass. The dragon roared with what Madoc wished he could believe was serious pain, but he knew from his memory of Moiread’s healing that the sound was more likely to be wrath.

  For certain, the wound didn’t stop Antonio. He lunged, and the tree Madoc sheltered behind swayed under the force of the attack. The gashes in its bark went almost to the center; it would not hold much longer. Neither, Madoc was sure, would he.

  * * *

  The change was swifter and more painful than Moiread had thought it would be. She’d pushed herself to what she’d thought was her limit, but the magic she’d felt spread outward and got behind her will, shoving her into her dragon shape. Thus aided, it hurt like the devil. In a few heartbeats, Moiread could have sworn she felt every claw rip through flesh, every muscle surge and expand.

  Her bones lengthened and hollowed.

  Her body expanded, taking on matter from elsewhere and weaving it into her shape.

  Skin became scales. Teeth lengthened and sharpened within a long mouth, around a forked tongue. Spines and wings tore themselves out of Moiread’s back. She screamed in pain. In dragon form, it became a roar that shook the trees around her.

  If Iestyn and his guards hadn’t gotten themselves away, that would surely have sent them running. Moiread couldn’t move to check. Pain held her captive. Then instinct brought her up on her hind legs, slashing at the air and roaring.

  Fire burned deep in her belly. When the smell of smoke filled her nostrils, Moiread first thought that it was coming from her. Then she saw the cloud rise over the pool, the flame flickering under it, and the great, dark shape from which it spread. The smaller figures outside the pool ran back and forth as the other dragon moved. One of them screamed.

  Madoc.

  The fire was nothing to the rage. It started in Moiread’s chest and kindled across her body. Pain vanished in its wake. Thought nearly followed. She was in the air before she was conscious of either leaping or spreading her wings, arrowing up out of the meadow and over toward the ring around the pool.

  Wind streamed past her. Her wings beat like thunder. Flocks of birds fled screaming from her path.

  The shape had its own will. When the air grew thick around her, slowing her progress, Moiread’s first impulse was to snap at it. Her teeth closed painfully on empty space. This was no solid barrier, nor a natural one.

  She strained against it, using every muscle in her shape to its fullest, but the air grew thicker as she got closer. Before long, she needed all her strength to stay aloft.

  Magic. The ritual had begun. Doubtless it had its own protections, and the land would have responded. Whether Madoc had intended it or not, anyone not part of the original four would find it hard to enter the circle.

  She would have hoped betrayal and attempted murder would break that circle on its own, but she didn’t have God’s ear. Hissing in frustration, Moiread hovered in place and bent her mind to reasoning quickly.

  One thing oft partakes of the nature of another, she remembered Madoc saying, particularly if they’re in long association.

  Even by human standards, Moiread didn’t have long on her side. Hopefully close would do instead.

  She thought of Madoc: the taste of his lips and the feel of his hands, the flash of his smile and the glint of his eyes. She remembered the feel of his cock inside her and the sounds he made at the moment of climax. She thought of sweat and seed and even blood, for she was sure she’d scratched his shoulders once or twice in the course of events.

  Slowly, the air parted before her. She gathered herself and dove.

  * * *

  Another roaring breath from Antonio, another dodge sideways and down, and a clump of trees behind where Madoc had been standing began to smolder.

  It was spring, and a wet spring at that, even for Wales. The leaves burned slowly. Later it would be a worry. If Antonio set anything else aflame, matters would grow worse, but Madoc couldn’t spare time to think about that. Nor could he give attention to the splashing in the pool behind him, except for a brief prayer that Elian and Bronwyn were both keeping themselves afloat.

  He wove a serpentine pattern between trees and hillside, finding the turns the dragon was too large to take swiftly and the openings too small for him to reach into quickly. Legs aching, lungs burning, Madoc leapt out of the way of a bite that would have taken off half his torso, rolled forward, and spun around toward Antonio’s tremendous blood clot of a body before the dragon had time to react.

  Antonio was coiling around to face him when Madoc drove his sword into the dragon’s side. It was a deeper wound than the one to the hand, and wider too. Madoc ripped downward as he pulled the blade out, spilling more hot blood onto the ground and sending up a smell like a blacksmith’s forge. Yet scales and skin were both tough, and Madoc didn’t dare to put his whole weight behind the blow. With no sure way to kill the beast, he couldn’t risk committing himself so fully to any one strike.

  Accordingly, he was throwing himself backward almost as soon as he struck, yanking his sword down and out to the sound of Antonio’s snarl. That one was pain as well as anger, Madoc thought, but he couldn’t be sure that he’d hit anything vital. He wasn’t certain what that would be in a dragon.

  Madoc turned. A small rise in the meadow, between him and the pool, was his next source of cover. He started to make for that, saw the motion of Antonio’s long, barbed tail, and threw himself sideways at the last second. Against an opponent of human speed, he would have been out of danger, but Antonio was quicker. The tail knocked Madoc off his feet and threw him forward, over half again his height of ground. Madoc crashed into the earth with one leg bleeding, and the impact jarred through his whole body.

  That was it, h
e thought, as he rolled desperately onto his back and clumsily brought his sword around in front of him. The dragon was springing, eyes glowing black. Madoc might be able to get to his feet in time, but he’d never get out of the way. The teeth in its huge mouth were yellowed like old ivory but looked razor-sharp.

  A shining golden missile flew through the air, meeting Antonio halfway through his descent. It struck the dragon right between the eyes, with a splash of water and a flash no sword blow had produced. Nor had any of Madoc’s cuts made Antonio hiss as that blow did. To his amazement, the dragon actually cringed back, interrupting his deadly arc and falling to earth with less grace than Madoc had yet seen from the monster.

  It was the chalice, he recognized, while instinct drove him scrambling to his feet: the chalice and the water of the pool. At that moment, a small, wet hand caught his upper arm and pulled him backward.

  “Get in.” Bronwyn sobbed as she spoke, rendering the words barely comprehensible. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, but get into the pool, it may help, it helped Father a little, I think, please, I’m sorry.”

  Well, if she’d gone mad or was confessing her sins, Madoc could understand both impulses, and her thinking wasn’t bad. He stepped backward, keeping an eye on the dragon, until he could lower himself into the pool feetfirst, holding on to the shore with one hand. The water was cold and he could feel no bottom, but it did seem to ease the pain in his leg.

  And, to his amazement, Antonio gave one final hiss, then spread huge wings and launched himself upward, out of the grove.

  All was silence, save for the subdued crackle of dying flames in the trees. Madoc looked behind him and saw Bronwyn clinging to her father, each of them with one hand on the lake’s edge. Both of their legs moved, paddling at the water and keeping them afloat. Elian was alive, then.

  “Is he…is he gone?” Bronwyn asked.

  Madoc looked upward, saw red like a wound in the blue summer sky, and shook his head. “Going, perhaps…no.” The red shape was circling the grove and picking up speed. “On my word, both of you hold your breath and duck.”

  He saw in Bronwyn’s face and Elian’s alike the same knowledge he had: even that, risky as it was, might not save them. The water hurt Antonio, but a man could ignore pain and even wounds if he needed to. What protection it did grant would be temporary… They couldn’t tread water forever.

  It was the best that any of them could do.

  Madoc watched the shape grow closer. “Pater noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…” he began. The prayer brought back memories of Moiread now, rather than thoughts of heaven, but he couldn’t regret that. If he was to die, that was how he would like it. God would understand.

  Antonio stopped circling and began to dive. One more word, Madoc thought, and then their fate would be whatever it was. He drew a breath, filling his lungs as full as he could manage.

  Then a silver-blue spear of a dragon streaked across the sky and clamped her jaws around Antonio’s neck.

  Forty

  Fights between dragons were rare. Moiread’s only experience had been in play with her siblings. From that, she’d expected the red dragon to pull back and claw at her chest. She’d guarded herself accordingly, as best she could.

  She hadn’t expected it to writhe its head around until it could fix its black eyes on hers. Neither had she anticipated the blast that hit her in her mind: distilled pain, absent any wound. Moiread opened her jaws without thought, instinct prompting her only to get away from the source of her agony, and around the pain she heard a voice.

  Begone, hatchling. This is my land. My stock.

  Confused, she could only roar and shake her head. The red dragon sighed. Its blood dripped from its neck and burned on her teeth, but it spoke with a tone akin to patience.

  You cannot win against me. You… Laughter echoed through her mind, sounding almost gently surprised. Were it not for the edge of utter ruthlessness that came with it, she could almost have believed it was friendly. You even smell like them. I was born of a goddess. Leave now, leave me to what is mine, and I will let you go. Your courage is worth that, and the world is wide.

  Even if Moiread could have spoken back, she wouldn’t have. The time for talking was far away. Under the pretext of listening, she filled her lungs and summoned fire, breathing it right into the other dragon’s face. Nor did she wait to see the results, but threw herself at her foe, sinking claws and teeth alike into its body.

  It was ready for her. The fire washed over its face, burning scales off its jaw and neck, but its eye remained as clear and glittering as before. The red dragon met her charge, slamming its shoulder into her chest and twisting to rake its claws toward her underbelly. Moiread backwinged hurriedly, just missing the strike.

  The hell of it was that the other could well be right. Its voice in her head was old, despite its strength. The images that arose when it spoke were of ancient temples and warriors in togas, people and places that had been ruins in Artair’s day. The act of mind-speaking was one Moiread had only heard of in stories—a mark of the oldest blood, the most direct descendants of the true dragons.

  She might well lose this one.

  The two of them circled each other, rising and falling. Moiread watched the other’s patterns for openings, knew it did the same with her, and knew she couldn’t spare a glance below her to the figures she’d briefly seen in the pool.

  Mine, the other dragon had said. She found herself thinking the same word. Had she possessed the other’s ability, Moiread would have thrown it at him like a spear: Mine. Mine, damn you.

  But the other had meant my stock. Moiread knew she didn’t mean that. Nor did she mean my people as her father did: his responsibilities, his charges, his subjects.

  She meant it as she might have said my home. In that moment, she knew that Madoc would always be hers in that sense, whether or not he wed Bronwyn—or any other woman. A part of her would always be in his keeping, and his presence would always, even if she never saw him again, be where she belonged, where she felt right and herself and at ease.

  If she didn’t come out alive, it would be enough to know that he went on, and not just because she’d have died fulfilling her duty or keeping her father’s bargains. A part of her would as well, and the rest of her would be easier for it, whether in heaven or lower.

  Home was a good cause to die for, if she had to die. Moiread had known that for years. So, she now realized, was love.

  The next pass showed an opening, a gap in the red dragon’s defenses. Moiread feinted upward, wings buffeting the air behind her. The other shot up to intercept her. She switched direction and came in along its side, claws extended.

  They pierced deep, digging into a still-healing earlier wound. Injury from their own kind healed more slowly; the other dragon shrieked.

  Your mum might’ve been divine. I’m sure all the soldiers say so, Moiread thought at her opponent, in case he could hear her. But you bleed like one of us.

  She had barely time to think it. Then the red pivoted midair, a move fast enough to completely belie its size. Moiread had no time to get out of the way before it grappled her. The weight of it bore her backward. As she lashed her head, trying to get her neck out of the way, she felt its fangs graze her throat and seek purchase.

  Her wings fanned the air frantically, pushing her back against the other dragon’s grip. She almost escaped, only to have the red tail wrap around her torso and pull her back, digging in with a barbed grip.

  It was her turn to scream her pain to the heavens. Though she did so with another gout of fire, the red’s grasp was strong.

  Whatever she felt worth dying for, she thought with bleak humor, she was likely to prove it soon.

  * * *

  Breathe.

  Cold water lapped around Madoc, soaking his clothes and his boots. They didn’t feel as heavy as he’d have ex
pected. Indeed, it was far easier to support himself in the pool than he’d realized. Perhaps it was magic, or perhaps terror lending strength to his muscles.

  Neither Bronwyn nor Elian looked to have trouble staying afloat either, for a mercy. Elian’s eyes were open and half focused, and his legs kicked regularly. The water made it impossible to see his wounds, but perhaps they weren’t so severe as Madoc had first thought.

  “Can you run?” he asked.

  Elian’s lips moved soundlessly before he managed a sound. “Wha—running? Maybe.” His words came out slurred, which didn’t surprise Madoc. Elian’s face was whiter than paper, his lips vaguely tinged with blue. Madoc thought injury was more to blame for that than water.

  “I can help him,” said Bronwyn. Tears were still pouring down her face, and she spoke unsteadily.

  Madoc could make out few details of the battle above him. The red dragon and the white twined in the sky, like the old legend come to life.

  “Make for the tree line as soon as you can. Take cover. Find a place under a tree or a rock where he can’t see you from the air. Hide. Then don’t move until I say, or unless the forest catches fire. Understand?”

  “Yes,” said Bronwyn.

  With one eye on the circling dragons above, Madoc helped Elian climb out of the pool and get an arm around his daughter’s neck. The lord’s glazed eyes turned toward him for a moment. “You?”

  “I’ll run if I must,” Madoc said. “But I’m armed and unwounded. I’ll fight if I can.”

  Elian nodded, raised his good hand, and squeezed Madoc’s shoulder. Then he and his weeping daughter made for the trees, moving in a painful hobbling run that had Madoc watching the sky even more anxiously.

  Magic for offense took time. He had that now, and a place of power, if he could tap into it. He couldn’t fight in the sky beside Moiread, but he didn’t have to leave her to battle alone.